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Published: March 27th 2013
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Krung Si Waterfall Our slowboat arrived on scheduled time on the pier in Luang Prabang. Because I'm always prepared, I pre-booked my hostel on hostelworld and set off to find the Khamanny Inn Hostel. Without a map or any navigational skills, it took me about half an hour walking around town to finally find it.
I spent about 5 days in Luang Prabang. The reason is, that it has a very nice backpacker atmosphere and is completely different from what you would expect from Laos. I felt like I just went to another city in the north of Thailand, as it reminded me a lot of Chiang Mai or Pai. I ran into a bunch of people I knew from Pai, which made it even harder to move on on my own. We kind of got lost in the narrow night market, the 10,000 kip buffet and a bar called Utopia. It is probably the busiest place in all of Luang Prabang. Run by 2 Canadians, it caters to all the needs of the Southeast Asia backpacker, which is good food, a fun crowd and lots of cheap alcoholic drinks. Despite the 11 pm curfew in Luang Prabang, Utopia would fill up by
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Jumbo Tuk Tuk 10 pm. When they finally had to close, a huge hub of drunk backpackers would hop into the jumbo tuk tuks to take them to the only place still open after 11.30: The infamous bowling alley. I expected some kind of secret night club or at least a bar, but it is in fact just a bowling alley that serves drinks. You can play a game of bowling with your friends for 20,000 kip each. It is a lot of fun once, maybe twice if you really like bowling and are really drunk, but I found one time in the bowling alley more than enough.
Our days were mostly filled with lazing around Utopia's beautiful riverview with a few drinks, or eating famous Lao dishes such as Laap or a simple but delicious rice noodle soup.
Unfortunately, we didn't even find the energy to visit a temple. But, coming from Thailand, are more temples really necessary?
One thing we did do in Luang Prabang was visit the Kuang Si waterfall. And, I have to say it was probably the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen, and I'm usually not impressed by waterfalls at all. We were 4
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Night market buffet people in total, and we got into a jumbo tuk tuk for 35,000 each (both ways). The ride took about 45 minutes and that included a flat tire each way. We paid the 20,000 kip entrance fee and walked up a short road to the waterfall. The park also had a bear sactuary, which we couldn't visit because there was not enough time.
The waterfall itself is a wonderful blue lagoon with several crystal clear, tuqouise pools lining up all the way back down. There was a swimming area with a swing and a little waterfall. An it was freezing cold! We went for a quick swim or swing, had a nice and cool Beerlao, dried up and went back to Luang Prabang for some more food and beers...
It wasn't a very spectacular stay, but because of good company I definitely enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Luang Prabang. After 5 days I thought it would finally be time to move on to Vang Vieng, despite its bad reputation. And since I didn't have too much time to spend, it was the only place i could still go.
It's definitely NOT worth it to go Vang Vieng, the
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Delicious Laap bars along the rivers are closed and the town itself is packed with fucked up backpackers who are just there to get even more fucked up by binge drinking and taking drugs. And that was the end of my Laos trip. I went straight back to Chiang Mai to spend a few more days before I had to catch my flight to the Philippines.
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